ACT Alliance

High school students in Mentawai carry relief goods to tsunami-hit villages. ACT training in disaster preparedness helped them cope with the emergency
ACT/YTBI/Rico Ahmad

When crisis hit the Mentawai islands in Indonesia last week, teenagers came to the rescue

by Sherly Leo, disaster training coordinator and YTBI volunteer

The first wave was knee-high, a trickle of water compared with what was to come. The second was a powerful surge of 1.5m. The third was a monster wall of water of between three and four metres high that would leave at least 450 people dead.

When her father yelled “tsunami”, high school teacher Yeni knew what to do. For six months in 2008, she had taught her students in the town of Sikakap, in Indonesia’s Mentawai islands, how to prepare for disaster. Yeni trained them in the first aid and search and rescue skills that would be needed if the worst did happen. When it did, in the wake of the earthquake on Monday of last week, teenagers from Mentawai Protestant Christian Church Junior School ignored the chaos and terror around them and put her teaching straight into practice.

The day after the tsunami, students Herlina, Deformalis and Parluhutan went to the command post in the administrative office to coordinate with Yeni and her colleague Berni. The three students helped residents clean debris from their houses and move into temporary shelters.

The following day, they helped a search and rescue team from the city of Padang evacuate people to a town on higher ground. Early the next day, they moved people from Beubukku village, and they have been working ever since to help move people to higher ground and to places of shelter.

Praise for the programme, which was run by ACT member YTBI, came from as far as Pakistan. Laksmita Noviera, from Islamabad, is a former programme leader of the school training programme in Mentawai. When she saw pictures of the students working she said "my body is shaken to imagine what happened with them. Thank God that our work is really useful.”

Evacuation training saved lives

Disaster-trainer Yeni fled the family home when the earthquake jolted her village. She went back a few minutes later to check television reports about the epicentre of the quake and realised that a tsunami was about to strike. Her family house sat right on the shore.

Yeni's father could see that the sea level was high but decided that it was not serious. Not long after he came back into the house, a huge rumble from the sea told a different story. He shouted, "Tsunami! Get away from here with your sister as quickly as you can. I will go up to the roof.”

When Yeni and her sister left the house, the sea water was knee-high. The very lessons she had taught students two years earlier rang in her ears as she ran along the evacuation route, while neighbours raced to the same spot.

Yeni's father, a fishermen, braced himself on the roof of the house as the tsunami slammed into it three times: the third time it was battered by a 4m-high wave. Early the next morning, Yeni returned to the house and saw all the household goods had been swept away. But her father, miraculously, was safe.  Yeni and her entire family had survived.

ACT in the Mentawai Islands

For several days after the tsunami, the remote Mentawai Islands were cut off from aid because of a combination of location and bad weather. ACT Alliance’s Church World Service was one of the first organisations to arrive in the worst-hit areas of South Pagai and North Pagai. At Parourogat village, on the shore facing the Indian Ocean, relief workers from the organisation found a village destroyed, with 65 of the 235 residents dead. Ten people are still missing and 23 were badly injured.

Storms and high waves are still hampering the aid effort. “We can’t go far because of the storm,” said CWS’s Ikhsan Mentong. “I heard that some rescue teams and aid distribution boats were drifting because of the storm.”

At another village in North Pagai, 108 people died. The tsunami flattened 74 houses, leaving 206 people homeless after being evacuated to higher ground 2km from their village. Some people have stayed in tents and others in temporary shelters roofed with coconut leaves. They have been drinking mineral water that they received with other aid. “It’s enough for 2-3 days,” said the head of the village. They have been using dirty water for other needs.

The local government and Indonesian Red Cross have distributed materials for building temporary shelters. However, people need tool kits to put them together, Ikhsan Mentong said. Shelter has become an urgent necessity for people as rainfall has increased in the Mentawai Islands.

Some survivors are traumatised by the loss of loved ones, homes, and fields. But they need not only support and solace in their grief: they also need food, clean water, hygiene kits, shelters and tools, sanitation facilities, kitchen utensils and cutlery.

Church World Service has distributed 226 baby-care kits to islands in the region, and sent a warehouse tent to a village for use as a health centre.

Other relief work by ACT includes delivery of mobile health services to the Mentawai islands, deployment of an emergency care nurses and doctors, evacuations to community health centres and churches, and distribution of food packages, baby food packages, plastic sheets, blankets, plastic robes, sanitary napkins and underwear.

ACT members responding to the Mentawai disaster are Canadian Reformed World Relief Committee, Church World Service, Diakonie Katastrophenhilfe, Lutheran World Relief, YAKKUM Emergency Unit, Yayasan Tanggul Bencana di Indonesia.